For the past few months, I have been tuning in to a cable TV series (on the History Channel) called "Ancient Aliens." The hypothesis of the program is that ultra-advanced, off-planet humanoids visited Earth in the prehistoric past and set up the ancient classical civilizations from which our modern cultures developed.

It is an intriguing proposition -- however improbable it might seem to those who believe our species is at the top of the universal intelligence ladder (actually, astronomically-statistically improbable in the extreme).

At this point, serious, well-versed science fiction aficionados might be heard yawning, "Yeah, know all about it, so what else is new?" Yet, sans the super-high-tech themes of time-travel, hyper-intelligent human-android hybrids, parallel universes, etc., the actual, present UFO/ET phenomena, as far as it has been revealed, is mind-boggling enough -- including a decades-long, comprehensive program within our government to conceal it, via denial, disinformation and cover-up.

And now, closed-minded skeptics can be heard murmuring, "Oh no, here we go again with the conspiracy theories" -- their brains clamped shut against the possibility of the public being purposefully kept in the dark on the subject, which is precisely the response desired by the top manipulators of public perception of accounts of apparently non-terrestrial spacecraft in our skies, jaw-dropping in their movement and appearance.

Hundreds of reported sightings and encounters with extraterrestrials themselves -- most by evidently sane individuals -- are ridiculed and dismissed as mass delusion by paid debunkers in media venues.

In 1959, NASA (a national defense adjunct rather than a civilian agency, as many believe) commissioned the prominent Brookings Institute to produce a report, "Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs." A conclusion of the report was that public revelation of non-terrestrial life forms possessing intelligence similar or superior to our own would pose the imminent threat of "the literal disintegration of society."'

Anthropological and historical studies, as the report stressed, were abundant with cases of entire cultures breaking down when faced with the existence of strange, unknown beings with human or super-human-like powers (e.g., native peoples encountering European colonizers).

In 1960, heeding the recommendations of the Brookings Report, NASA comprehensively implemented its program of UFO/ET secrecy, in collaboration with the military and intelligence services' top brass. By that time, according to whistleblower Richard C. Hoagland, former NASA consultant to the Goddard Spaceflight Center in the post-Apollo era, NASA's inside elite were already privy to the information that artifacts and remnants of alien technology already had been detected on the moon.

Moreover, Hoagland wrote in his book, "Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA," the spectacularly successful Apollo moon program of the 1960s was "a kind of 'alien reconnaissance' followed by an 'alien artifacts retrieval' program."

In response to skeptics, who ask how he could have obtained legitimate NASA satellite images of alien ruins and technology on the moon (shown on his "Enterprise Mission" website after 40 years of tight supression, Hoagland said a small cadre of new generation NASA dissidents, in opposition (secretly, obviously) to the ongoing suppression of information, have been leaking the images, drip by drip. He challenged anyone to prove the pictures have been altered from the originals. Thus far, there have been no serious takers.

Though the UFO/ET secrecy conspiracy might strike many as a deep can of worms, the phenomena at this point is itself a virtually bottomless one by comparison, mind-bendingly complex and multi-layered. The division between ancient and modern is basic, though connections between the two will, when and if they are made, be landmarks in the history of alien investigation.

Hoagland has been the spearhead in legitimizing the "Face on Mars," using cutting-edge enhancement technology and sophisticated analyses by respected experts to prove it is not a mere "illusion of light and shadow," as NASA spokesmen have asserted. Also, geometrical structures in the region of the face have been shown to be artificial as well, rather than natural formations (elucidated in his book, "The Monuments of Mars").

Meanwhile, a campaign continues by tireless investigators to pressure our government to force NASA, the military and complicit intelligence heads to reveal all they know about modern and current evidence of UFOs and ETs. Such organizations as Stephen Greer's Disclosure Project are at the forefront of that effort.

It has been pointed out that secrecy might serve two masters: protection and security for all or protection for the power of those who would master us.

Which master has our assigned protectors been serving? Is the truth, like that of the aliens, one they don't think we can handle?

A. Wayne Senzee, formerly of Hays, is a published author now residing in Salina.